The recent easing of property cooling measures in Singapore is expected to spur interest in the market, said Knight Frank.
Singapore saw house prices drop 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016 from the previous year, revealed a Knight Frank report.
This places the city-state in the bottom three on Knight Frank’s Global House Price Index rankings list along with Taiwan and Ukraine, which saw house prices fall 6.5 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.
The index showed that global housing prices rose six percent in Q4 2016, up from 4.1 percent in Q4 2015.
Topping the list is Iceland, with house price growth of 14.7 percent, followed by New Zealand and Malta with growth rates of 12.7 percent and 12.4 percent, respectively.
Rounding up the top five list are Canada and Turkey.
“The overall picture is one of stable or rising prices, despite the global landscape of political and economic uncertainty,” said Kate Everett-Allen, Partner, International Residential Research at Knight Frank.
She noted that the number of housing markets that recorded price increases climbed from 43 in 2015 to 47 in 2016.
“With higher inflation and diverging monetary policies expected in 2017, we may see a widening gap between the strongest and weakest performing market,” she added.
Nicholas Holt, Head of Research of Knight Frank Asia Pacific, cited Singapore as the most notable market in Asia due to the surprise slight easing of certain cooling measures, which is expected to spur some additional interest in the market.
However, “many buyers in Singapore are still constrained by the Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty and lending restrictions”, said Holt.
Romesh Navaratnarajah, Senior Editor at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact him about this or other stories, email romesh@propertyguru.com.sg
